JOHN M. TYLER et al, Petitioners,
             vs.
JOHN P. SQUIRE etal, Respondents.
v
CLOSING ARGUMENT
HENRY  W.  MUZZEY.  Esq.,
IN BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENTS,
THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH,

           December 29, 1873.
        CAMBRIDGE:
WELCH, BIGKLOW, AND COMPANY,
          Samberstts $«»*.
            1874. 
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JOHN  M. TYLER et al, Petitioners,
            vs.
JOHN P. SQUIRE et at, Respondents.
CLOSING ARGUMENT
HENRY   W.  MUZZEY,  Esq.,
IN BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENTS,
THE STATE BOARD  OF  HEALTH,


          December 29, 1873.
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         CAMBRIDGE:
wel;ch,  bigelow, and company,
          SEntbersttg $regg.
             1874. 
NATIONAL LIBRARY  OF MEDICINE ]
      WASHINGTON, D. C.       , 
argument;
 May it please the State Board op Health : —
   A wise and beneficent quality in the moral and mental nature of
 man asserts, as a governing principle in the administration of pub-
 lic-justice, that where large powers are conferred upon a tribunal,
 they should be temperately, cautiously, and  sparingly used.  The
 Legislature has intrusted to the Board which I now have the honor
 to address, a*i authority, in some respects, unprecedented, and unap-
 proached in magnitude  by the ppwers bestowed upon any other
 tribunal in the Commonwealth.  It is higher, even, than the sover-
 eign power of eminent domain ; for if the property of a citizen be
 taken for a public use, he must be compensated, and may have  a
 jury to assess his damages.  By a stroke  of  the  pen, you may de-
 stroy that citizen's business, and forbid the use of his  property,
 thereby, practically, destroying the property itself, and the law pro-
 vides for him no jury ; no redress, no compensation.  The power to
 regulate,  and prohibit the carrying on, of certain trades has long re-
 sided with the local boards of health  in cities and towns; but the
 right of appeal from their orders to a jury has always been secured
 to the  citizen by the law. The omnipotency of this Board is well
 exhibited in its freedom from the restraints that surround a trial by
jury.  If the jury err, the judge may set aside their verdict.   If the
judge rule the law incorrectly, the full bench of the Supreme Judi-
 cial Court may rectify the error.  Thus, in every other forum, famil-
iar to our law, the safeguards  of jury and court are  thrown  around
property.  If they are missing here and in  this proceeding, it must
be because the Legislature, in creating this tribunal, and in clothing 
4
it with  such novel and  extraordinary functions, believed  that the
character of those selected to administer its duties would assure just
and adequate protection to private interests, as well as due attention
to the public welfare.
  And so it is that, this  day, you, gentlemen, stand between us and
the petitioners, as a fair and  impartial tribunal, to judge and deter-
mine, according to the law, and the evidence  submitted to you, be-
tween the parties to this hearing.

  At the threshold of the case, lie two general inquiries,—Who are
our assailants, and whom and what do they assail ?

  The petition upon  your  table is  signed  by eight  individuals,
claiming to represent the people  of East Cambridge.   In  point of
fact, however, it appears that, in this respect, they make an errone-
ous claim.   In midsummer a meeting was called, with the professed
purpose of obtaining an expression of public opinion, in the neigh-
borhood, concerning  the  establishments located  upon the borders of
Miller's Eiver.  The call originated  with persons  hostile to  these
establishments ; but  when the meeting assembled, they found them-
selves in a minority of. those who composed it; whereupon, under
the leadership of  the gentleman who represents them as counsel at
this hearing,' they questioned the right to take  part in the meeting,
and demanded the expulsion of,  all who disagreed with them.   The
weather was not warmer than the discussion that this unfair demand
provoked.  Finally,  upon a direct appeal to the employees of the
threatened establishments, they withdrew from  the meeting, having
been told  that it was intended only for the opponents of their em-
ployers,, and not as  a general meeting open to all citizens and tax-
payers of East Cambridge.  Their retirement, followed by the with-
drawal, also, of many disinterested citizens, disgusted with the unfair
proceedings, left the meeting greatly shorn of  its  original propor-
tions.  Those who remained, consisting only of the promoters of the
meeting, and persons in  sympathy with  their  designs, then carried
out the programme in peace and with alacrity.   Among other things,
they resolved: —
  " That the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, who are designated and em-
powered as the protectors of the health of our citizens, be requested to
petition the State Board of Health, without delay, to order, as a sanitary
measure, the following : That the several basins comprising Miller's  River 
5
I  shall, within as short a time as  the greatest appliances will permit, be
!  filled, the sewers to be constructed as the filling goes on."

    This  resolution was  passed  either in ignorance, or  disregard, of
I  the facts, that the Legislature had already ordered both the filling
;  and the sewer, that  the work  was in progress, and that the State
•  Board of Health had no jurisdiction in the premises.  After the air-
i  ing of much inflammatory rhetoric, they  also passed  a  resolution
j  calling upon the Cambridge Board of Aldermen to petition the State
i  Board of Health  to proceed against £he slaughter-houses.  But the
  Aldermen refused the request, as applicable to any of these establish-
  ments, and declined to take action against that of Mr. Squire by the
|  strong  and  significant vote of  eight  to one, — the single affirmative
  vote being cast by an Alderman  who had  had a personal difficulty
  with Mr. Squir£.
    Our assailants  had already applied to the grand jury, to indict the
  Squire establishment as a  nuisance ; but the grand jury, at the late
  term of the court, ignored the bill.   Defeated everywhere else, —
  the local authorities of Cambridge  and Somerville, and  the grand
  jury, refusing to  listen to them, •— our restless and persistent ene-
  mies have  brought their  complaint to this Board.   We meet them
  here with three, clear verdicts,  already recorded in  our favor by the
  local tribunals.

    (1.) In the autumn of 1872  they petitioned the  Board of Alder-
  men of Cambridge to suppress  our business ; but that Board, after a
  full and patient  hearing, declined the invitation.   (2.) On the re-
  newal of their petition to the same Board last  summer, it met  with
  the same fate.   (3.) They experienced a like failure before the grand
  jury, at its recent session.
    No public body, charged with  the duty of passing upon the question
  of the continuance of Mr. Squire's establishment, has ever condemned it.

    I have the happiness to add  to these results the further and dom-
  inating fact, that the Joint Commission, comprising this honorable
  Board and the Harbor Commissioners, appointed by the Legislature of
  1872 to inquire into the cause of the nuisance existing in the valley
  of Miller's River, and to  devise  and  recommend  measures for its
  removal and cure, did not find  it necessary to extinguish  and drive
  therefrom the business which I  am here to defend.  That competent
  body — in their union, as the guardians of the commercial and sani- 
6
tary interests involved — made a careful exploration of the subject.
Unusually qualified themselves for this  duty, they, nevertheless,
called  other  skilled and  professional  service to their aid.  They
granted a public hearing ; they listened to testimony and arguments,
and visited the  ground embraced in the inquiry.   After full  and
careful study, they made their report, which founded itself upon a
broad and comprehensive survey of the matters submitted to them.
It reconciled  conflicting views of engineering and sanitary science,
and declared that the remedy for the nuisance lay in the making of
the basins of Miller's  River  solid land, and in  the building of a
grand trunk sewer, finding its  outlet away from this district, and in
strong ocean currents.  These were mere  recommendations.   To
give effect to them,  it was necessary that the Legislature should put
them into law.   This the General Court the present year  did, and
further on, it will become my pleasure, as well as my duty, to assign
the merit of this legislation  to  the source from which it sprung.
The  work of constructing  the sewer has been undertaken, and is
being prosecuted,—vigorously by Somerville, tardily, and with halt-
ing steps, by  Cambridge.   But  the filling  of the  basin has been
pushed forward by Mr. Squire, almost without co-laborers, official or
individual.  So  much  for public fact and testimony, already accu-
mulated.

   Our antagonists, then, appear before you. as mere partisans of one
side of a local contest.   They come  clouded with the unfairness  and
cowardice which denied to the whole community, drawn together at
their call, the plain  right to participate in the meeting.   They come
with three, and the  only, special- findings of  tribunals against them,
and in favor of us, upon the matters involved in this hearing. They
come, further, to ask you to paralyze the liand most vigorously en-
gaged in carrying out the measures of relief recommended  by the
Joint Commission, and indorsed by the Legislature, for removing the
nuisance in Miller's River valley.   They come in the face of official
and private local sentiment and opinion. . -S&ey come to  assail, not
us alone, but the great future of Boston.   They come, heedless  and
impatient, to obstruct and thwart the developments, now in progress,
of your own advice, approved  by the Legislature.   They come — a
small, limited, and prejudiced set of individuals — to ask of you a
condemnation of the good sense and judgment of the local  and
governing authorities of Cambridge and Somerville; who, trusting 
7
 in your advice and that of your associates upon the Joint Commis-
 sion, have entered upon the work you prescribed for them, and are
 confident of the results.  They come in defiance  of the voices of
 science and the appeal of commerce.  I would do them no rudeness ;
 but, in dismissing them now from consideration, I  cannot withhold
 the remark, looking over the history of the controversy, and mindful
 of the intelligence and light which it has evoked, — so largely due
 to the Joint Commission, — that it is difficult to conceive how a pur-
 suit which was begun in ignorance, can now,  and under existing
 circumstances, be continued and inspired by creditable motives.

   I pass gladly, and with pride, to the second inquiry, — Who  and
 what are assailed ?  A brief review of the controversy is essential
 to the answer.  You,  Mr. Chairman, and a majority of  the  Board,
 have learned Something of  it, heretofore; but three of  your asso-
 ciates have never had  any official  relations to it.   I must, therefore,
 begin at the beginning, but shall not  tax your patience  long upon
 the  subject.  Two summers ago,  the Squire,  Boynton,  and North
 establishments were summoned  before this Board, on the petitions
 of the city authorities  of Cambridge and Somerville.  But a confer-
 ence between the representatives of these cities  and establishments,
 speedily revealed the  truth (as Mr. Parker  has  told you), that the
 evil condition of the locality could not  be relieved by the removal
 of the slaughter-houses, but demanded  the application  of broader
 remedies,  covering the whole of the  infected district.  And  so the
 complaints were, by the mutual consent of parties, withdrawn from
 your attention, upon the understanding that both  should unite to
 secure legislative intervention and help.   Upon petition, at the en-
 suing session of the Legislature, a hearing was had, at which con-
 flicting engineering advice and theories gave rise  to  a reference, by
 the Legislature, of the whole subject to a Joint Commission, to con-
 sist of the State Board  of Health  and the  Harbor  Commissioners.
 The merit of suggesting this solution of the controversy belongs to
 Mr. Squire, by whose  counsel  it was  presented  to  the  committee,
 and who submitted a bill, which the  committee  recommended  and
the Legislature enacted.  Mr. Squire, partly — as the two cities were
in the main, — responsible for the condition of  the river basins, de-
sired  that scientific  differences concerning  the proper treatment of
the water-areas should be submitted to a competent body for deter-
mination.   He sought  to lift a subject of  large importance to its
proper plane, for intelligent examination and sound determination. 
8
  The Joint Commission met in the summer of  1872.   They  gave
public notice  of the hearing to all concerned.   They  listened to
every suggestion which any one interested in the subject desired to
present to them;  and no  one went away from the hearing without
feeling that he had enjoyed a just  opportunity, patiently and cheer-
fully  accorded, of presenting his  views and his interest  to  their
attention.  The Joint Commission,  after the public hearing  was
closed, employed an eminent civil engineer, of their  own selection,
the Hon. Phineas Ball of Worcester, to aid  them with  his profes-
sional skill and advice in arriving at conclusions.  The authority of
the Commission was, against the desire of Mr. Squire, limited to
making recommendations.  He wished them to be  clothed  with
authority to execute such measures for the relief of  Miller's River
valley as they decided should be applied.  He was ready to submit
the question,  whether his own  establishment and the  business of
slaughtering swine should be sacrified, as well as the questions of
filling and drainage, to their final determination.  But, remonstrance
being made by the cities, he reluctantly consented that the Commis-
sion should have only advisory powers.

  The Commissioners made their report shortly before the'meeting
of the Legislature.  Mr. Squire had contended before them, and pre-
sented high engineering authority to  show, that the  sanitary inter-
ests involved'would be best  satisfied by the bulkheading, dredging,
and preservation from future defilement, of the water-basins, — to-
gether with the  leading  away to deep water of the sewage, then,
and to some extent at present, discharged into Miller's River.  The
Commissioners and their  engineer agreed  with him  upon  the last
proposition, but decided that filling the basin with earth was pref-
erable to flooding it from the sea.
  The methods of relief pointed out by the Joint Commission had,
indeed, been substantially anticipated by the State Board of Health,
who, on page 70 of their Report for 1872, remarked: —
  " The great  and  pressing want in the  case of these hog-slaughtering
houses is drainage, and this they could have by the filling up the flats of
Miller's River and the construction of a sewer through the whole length
of the basin."
  To fill his fifteen acres, involved Mr. Squire in an expenditure of
at least $ 75,000, and brought no  advantages to  the  conducting of
his  business.   It was money sunk and  lost to that. Still further, it 
k
|                                  9

  would sacrifice  an existing benefit of his location, in that it would
}  deprive him of the cooling influences of the sea around and beneath
  his works.
     But he had asked for the Commission, and determined, in advance,
  to submit to  its  advice.   Accordingly,  when  a  hearing  upon  the
  question as to whether the plan  of relief from the  Miller's River
  nuisance, devised and recommended by the Joint  Commission, came
  on before the legislative committee,—presided  over by the able and
  intelligent representative  from East Cambridge itself,— Mr. Squire
  appeared, and stoutly contended that  the  Legislature  should accept
  and  enforce the work of  the Commission, in all its parts.  He was
  the only party to the previous controversy that took this  stand  be-
  fore  the committee.  The cities of Cambridge and Somerville — eager
  for a law to compel the filling, which they had  advocated  before  the
  Commission — strenuously.objected to being compelled by  the Legis-
  lature  to construct a sewer upon either  of the lines recommended
  by the Commission, and indorsed by their  engineer.  They  still plead
  to be  allowed to  follow the valley of Miller's  River,  and  make  the
  sewer  outlet therein.  The contest before the  committee, however,
  resulted  in  a  compromise between Mr.  Squire and  the  cities, by
  which  all were committed to the support of  a bill providing for  the
  filling  of the. basins, and leaving it optional with the  cities to build
  a sewer  to  discharge either at Craigie Bridge, in Cambridge, or at
  Tufts's Dock, in Charlestown, but  compelling them to construct one
  or the  other, — both of these lines being highly commended by  the
  Commissioners' engineer.  A bill with these  provisions was reported
  from the committee.

    In the Legislature it was amended, by making it compulsory upon
  the cities to construct the  sewer on the line to  Craigie Bridge; and
  in this form the bill passed, receiving the  almost unanimous  ap-
  proval  of both Houses.  (Acts 1873, ch. 304.)

     What  has been  done  under  this legislation ?  In  Somerville, the
  construction of the required sewer has been reasonably prosecuted ;
  but Cambridge  has done nothing within her territory.  Cambridge
  sewers  still empty into Miller's River.  Mr. Squire's duty under the
  act has been met  and answered in a  manner worthy of  all praise.
  With that good faith and ready submission to results which has
  characterized his every action, he, as  soon as the act  passed, made 
10
his contracts to meet it, so far as any of its provisions were directed
at him.   When the season allowed, he began to move Prospect Hill
into the river basin which he owned; and has since made that degree
of progress with the filling which might be expected by any one ac-
quainted with  his  determined  and  energetic  character.  He  has
expended in this work, already, nearly $30,000, and the  total cost
to him  will reach, at least, the  sum of $ 75,000.  The early sum-
mer will find  his part in the work, which  you advised, well and
thoroughly done!   Had all  related to the  accomplishment  of the
remedy for the nuisance taken  hold of their respective duties with
the same fidelity, honesty, and energy, the  ensuing summer would
witness no trace of the famous and infamous " Miller's River  nui-
sance."   But my  clients cannot control  the  movements of public
bodies.   What belongs to them is, and will be, promptly and faith-
fully accomplished.  Mr. Squire is doing something more than what
the law commands.   He is spending very large  sums in improving
his premises, and in  building, a fine  market and lodging-house, of
substantial brick and  tasteful  construction, in  East Cambridge.
So much for the man and his characteristics.  It is always pleasant
for me  to  speak  of him, for I  feel  that my feet rest upon solid
ground.  Sustaining toward him the relation of professional adviser
and counsel from the beginning of the controversy, in which he has
borne so manly, consistent, and useful' a part, I think I may claim
to know the man.
   It was scarcely to be supposed that, after what I have already de-
tailed to you, anybody could be found — however much disappointed
and smarting under the defeats accompanying previous  investiga-
tions — bold or impudent enough to resort to this Board, in the ex-
pectation or hope that you would interfere, at the present time, with
the business of the establishment for which I speak.   Did they sup-
pose that you would pay no attention to the fact that it had been
conducted with a  view to trying the propriety of its existence under
your own advice, sought for in your published reports and in the ac-
tion of  the Joint  Commission, and followed regardless  of what ex-
pense might be incurred thereby ?  There may be deaf ears in these
matters, but I do not speak for them.   We have something at stake.
I doubt if  its  magnitude is entirely appreciated even here, and  I
know that the community at large we're, before the developments at
this hearing, little aware of what the stopping of the business of this
establishment would entail upon the community. 
11
  Let me give you  briefly and comprehensively a few statements of
fact in this connection.   The premises owned and occupied for their
business by John I*. Squire & Co. comprise about twenty acres, or
880,000 square feet of land.  Their buildings, alone, cover over five
acres, or more, than 200,000 feet.  Besides the immense houses de-
voted to the various processes of the business, — assembled within the
enclosure are an ice-house, holding 8,000 tons ; stables ; coopers' shop;
harness shop ;  wheelwrights' and blacksmiths'  shops ; — in  short,
every facility for pursuing the business is gathered there.  Persons
familiar with establishments  devoted to the same business, in this
and foreign countries, inform me that there is nothing, at home or
abroad, which in size, completeness, and cleanliness is  superior to
the establishment of my clients.  Their works have cost a half-mil-
lion of dollars, and the annual product of the establishment is  con-
stantly increasing,  and has already reached  $8,000,000.  400,000
swine  are slaughtered  annually.  700 men,  whose  annual  wages
reach  $500,000, and 70 horses, are employed.  The value of the
product shipped yearly to Europe is $ 3,000,000, and of  that sold in
the domestic market, $5,000,000.  But, as  yet, I  have spoken of
wdiat relates to the business withtn  the walls  of the establishment.
Pass with  me to the impulse given  to  business  outside of it.  It
requires annually for its uses 10,000 tons of ice; 2,500 tons of coal;
200 cords of wood ; 19,000 hogsheads, or 5,000 tons, of salt.   These
are a few of the items of consumption.

  Let  us  reach to  broader interests; stretching east and west, and
over the ocean.  The pork-slaughtering and packing establishments
have become of vast importance  to- the commerce of Boston, in sus-
taining lines  of communication with the West and with Europe. A
commercial centre depends for  its prosperity  and importance upon
the avenues of communication that lead to it from tributary terri-
tory.   The ship and the railroad have made Boston what she is as a
mart of trade.  Not  the  merchant only, but the whole  community,
are interested here.   Cheap, quick, and convenient  transportation,
inland and ocean, are concerned, for all who have occasion to  trans-
port or travel.  This one establishment pays to  the  Cunard Steam-
ship Company about $300,000, and to the Boston and Albany Rail-
road $700,000, in freights, annually; also, above  $25,000 in freights
to Antwerp. 
12
  The momentous question addressed to this Board, here and now,
iSj — Shall this business be stricken down ?  It presents  itself  for
consideration in three branches, or  divisions:  first, and paramount,
in its sanitary aspects ;  second, in its commercial or business aspects;
and third, in the weight justly to be accorded  to public opinion, as
applicable to both of the preceding.
  The history of the case has  already reached satisfactory scientific
determinations of sanitary questions.
  In the autumn of 1872, when the investigation  before the Cam-
bridge Board of Health  (composed of the  Mayor and Aldermen)
arose, Dr. Charles T. Jackson was employed by Mr. Squire to make
a thorough exploration of his establishment and  its  surroundings.
This resulted in an entire vindication from  the charges which had
been brought before the Board.  The errors into which Mr. Munroe
had been led, some of which he has repeated at this hearing, and
others which  he has  wisely and conscientiously  abandoned, were
plainly exposed and brushed aside.   I regret that  no  report of Dr.
Jackson's testimony, which exhausted the controversy, has been pre-
served.   No one then looked for the misfortune which has, within
a few months, sadly overtaken him.   I am  sure that  I may speak,
not only to, but for, the members of this Board, in expressing the
hope that he may soon be restored to his  accustomed  labors in the
paths of  science.
  When we were notified of the petition against us,  the return of
Professor Horsford, from conspicuous service in the National inter-
est at Vienna, was understood to be near at hand, and was  eagerly
watched  for in behalf of Mr. Squire.  After his arrival, he had
hardly enjoyed a half-day's welcome from his  family before  he
was applied to to investigate the charges  against the  Squire estab-
lishment, which had been laid before you.   Conflicting engagements
made it impossible for him to promise to undertake  the work, un-
less sufficient time should be granted to him.  He had never been
known to have set foot  within Mr.  Squire's establishment, or to
have expressed any opinion concerning jt, or upon the vexed ques-
tion of the neighboring nuisance; but Mr. Squire, always ready to
submit to the results attendant upon skilled and  competent inves-
tigation,  instructed me to apply for  a postponement of the hearing
before this Board till such time as would enable Professor Horsford
to enter upon and complete the work: requested of  him.   We thank
you for granting the request, and believe that all concerned  in this 
                               13

proceeding, and the  cause  of justice  itself, have  been benefited by
the postponement.   Professor Horsford has made and presented to
you, in his masterly report, the  result of a minute  and searching
investigation into every  department  and detail of  our business.
He is informed as to similar works in this country and  in  Europe.
He has explored Miller's River and the surrounding  territory, and,
by an  independent route, reached the same  conclusions which Dr.
Jackson presented at the  investigation of last year.
   There is no mystery.  The cause of the trouble bares itself read-
ily to the eye of science.   Miller's River is  only the companion of
numerous other seats of pollution upon the shores of the Charles
and the Mystic.  And, after the filling of the basins shall have been
accomplished, and the great sewer built and in use, there will still
be complaints, as Professor Horsford reminds you, while Charles-
town Mill Pond,  Broad Canal, the marshes east of  the House of
Correction, Prison Point, the Cambridge shores of Charles River,
on either side of West Boston  Bridge, the water angle near the
junction of Charles  and Beacon  Streets, and, finally, the estuary of
Miller's River itself, are allowed to continue as settling basins for the
sewage of Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Charlestown.   Anal-
yses of mud  taken from all these places, and from many others de-
filed in the same way, reveal the  one common source of the insalu-
brity of the air breathed by our people.

   Mr.  Merrick's analyses show that  sulphuretted hydrogen comes
from all of these places.  Bad  as the  basins of Miller's River are,
and strong as is the  demand for their obliteration, the air is tainted
by the filth in other  localities quite as much; and the deposit taken
from a neighboring  spot,  lying  between Portland Street and the
Grand Junction Railroad, and near to  Broad Canal, in East  Cam-
bridge, shows a greater amount of sulphuretted hydrogen than could
be discovered in any part of the  bed of these basins.   Some parts
of Broad Canal itself, to whose foulness no slaughter-house has ever
contributed, taint  the atmosphere, in  close  rivalry  with  Miller's
River,  and with like weapons.   In fact, public attention in  Cam-
bridge  has, since the passage of the law for the relief of the  Miller's
River  district,  been  diverted therefrom to the condition of Broad
Canal.   Private suits have been instituted  against Cambridge by
individuals having proprietary rights in the canal,  and the local
newspapers are loud in the demand for the turning away of the
sewers, and other steps for the purification of the  canal. 
                               14

   I have alluded to the fact that improvements have already been
made, and others are in progress, in the interior of the Squire estab-
lishment.  In July last, the Cambridge Board of Health passed an
order requiring the combustion of the gases in all establishments
engaged in rendering by steam.  The gases, being  soluble in water,
had hitherto  been discharged  into a  vat of water, refreshed  and
changed by each tide, beneath the  building;  but upon the passage
of this  order,  Mr. Squire immediately complied  with it, and the
gases are now  being successfully destroyed  by the furnace fires.
That the gas from the rendering-tanks is thoroughly consumed by
the boiler fires, is satisfactorily shown by the experiment of letting
it escape from an aperture in the pipe into a room, when it has been
found to burn freely and emit no odor.   The patentee of the Turner
process, Which  is in use at our works, claims an  illuminating power
as among the  merits of his invention.  His own  establishment  is
lighted with  this gas.  Two years of  improvement  in inventions for
the destruction of injurious  gases generated  in. rendering-establish-
ments, have elapsed since the making of the  Report of the Superin-
tendent of Health of Providence, in 1871.  Science has been on the
march ever since, until now undoubted  success has been  reached in
the apparatus in use at the  Brighton  abattoir  and in the Squire
establishment.
  I quote, from the Report  of  the  State Board of Health  for 1872,
the following: —
  "As regards bone-boiling and fat-melting, if the material to be used  is
fresh, and unchanged by any taint of decay, the vapors  coming from  it
can be condensed in water, and there are several available plans for doing
this without offence, if water is abundant and drainage complete.
  " If, however, the material is tainted, as is certain to be the case in the
waste animal matter collected in a large city, there is no process  known
to us by which the complex gases thus combined with  watery vapor can
be destroyed,  except by fire.
  " This mode of dealing with them is effectual, and apparently the only
conditions for success are, the  having a fire so hot that the watery vapor
may not put it out, and delivering the gases at a high temperature."
•  Of his own motion, Mr. Squire has arranged to do all the  trying
and rendering of pure, as well  as of impure,  matter  in steam-close
tanks, — although in Paris  the rendering  is still  done in  open
kettles,  in the best  appointed abattoirs.  Other  changes  in  the
establishment have been made, by which, among other things, the 
15
slaughtering and cleansing apartments have been removed to another
part of the premises, which is provided with tight or seamless floors.
All  of the  blood  and offal is conveyed from the Squire  establish-
ment, in air-tight  carts, each night.   The solid contents of the scald-
ing-tub are precipitated, and removed in the same way.  The " soup "
from the rendering-tanks is sweet when drawn  off.   It is  soluble in
water, and is easily borne away with the  tide.   But Mr. Squire, in
view of the doubt raised at this hearing,  whether  the " soup " may
safely be discharged into a sewer, has contracted with Mr.  Upton for
its daily removal from the works in air-tight vessels.  You will ob-
serve with what enlightened steps this establishment advances in the
path of improvement.  It only awaits the new sewer to accomplish
the best conditions in the conduct of such an establishment which
science has offered.  Mr. Chase, the engineer appointed to superin-
tend the construction of  the  new  sewer, and a very competent
authority, tells you that the sewage from the Squire works  may be
received into it without  difficulty of any kind, and will make  no
perceptible  increase in its contents at times when its mouth is closed
by the tide.  The contributions to the sewer from these works will
consist only of such matters as are recognized, in your Report for the
present year, as proper to be carried  away in a public sewer.  I find
these enumerated  in the following paragragh, appearing on pages 28
and  29 of the Report : —
   " There are other forms of refuse, of a fluid or semi-fluid kind, which may
be carried away by  force of gravity in sewers.  The washings  and  scrap-
ings  of hides, both  their outer and inner surfaces;  the washings of hogs,
after  scalding their skins, as is practised at hog  slaughter-houses ; the
wash of all slaughter-houses and of stables ; chemicals used in the prep-
aration  of leather and morocco ; chemicals  used  in woollen and cotton
factories and print-works ; the  fluid waste  of  rendering establishments
and  of  soap-factories, — these are among the most important of  this
class."
   Experiments with disinfecting agents, to be applied to  the swine
in the cars, are being made, with every prospect that  soon the ani-
mals will arrive in  an  inoffensive condition.   They are  taken di-
rectly from the railroad into the receiving-house, the floors of which
are strewn with charcoal, wet  with carbolic acid, for their  reception.
  You are aware that existing, under the  sanction of the Board of
Health of the City of New York, are  two large hog-slaughtering es-
tablishments, upon the  North River, known  as the  " Booth and 
16
Tobey Works."  In one of these, the gases are discharged under wa-
ter ;  in the other, they are consumed by fire.   Formerly, Mr. Squire
used the first method; now, he employs the  latter.  Both of  these
establishments, whose methods were recently examined by Professor'
Horsford, have the sanction and approval of  that Board of Health,
of whose vigilance and courage it  is sufficient to remark  that they
levelled to the ground, in a single night, buildings, styled markets,
covering acres of ground, because of their  unhealthy condition and
distributions.
   In passing, I have to remark, that I represent clients who are now
employing the best established methods and welcoming fresh sug-
gestions.  If anything now  existing about this establishment, or in
any of its processes, is susceptible of substantial improvement, when
the light is welcomed, the change  will be made.   Trust the  record
for this.   Do not forget that Mr. Squire has solemnly promised you,
during this hearing, to be guided by your  advice in these  matters.   If
you recommend an improvement, he will adopt it.

   I infer from the statute which created this Board, that its design
was to assemble a qualified body of gentlemen who should investi-
gate questions of moment to the people, concerning health and life,
with a view to disseminating throughout the Commonwealth sound
and enlightened instruction  and advice upon  practical  sanitary sub-
jects, and to presenting suggestions to the Legislature, which, taking
the form of law, might advance the general welfare in these  direc-
tions.  If I am right as to the original intention of your office, it is
very apparent that subsequent legislation has cast upon you duties
and functions  not contemplated at the start. I  am  glad that  the
State has the happiness to find gentlemen who are willing to per-
form, gratuitously, such self-abnegative services  as this one hearing
has,  for a whole month, imposed upon this  Board.  Remembering
the earlier intention of your office, am I not right in suggesting that
it is well to preserve  my clients, if for no other  reason  than that
they have the spirit, as well  as the pecuniary ability, to put upon
practical trial  whatever you may, in the acquisitions of your wisdom,
discover and recommend as likely to rid  the community from  all
offence in conducting the pursuit in which they are engaged ?

   The statute gives to this  Board the  power to  prohibit,  but not to
regulate, the carrying on of the business  pursued by my clients.  It 
                               17
                 •
 should have authority to do both.  I am authorized  by Mr. Squire
 to make public a proposition which has already been  communicated
 to the petitioners and their counsel.   It  is this:  That the present
 complaint be allowed to subside until the meeting of the Legisla-
 ture, when Mr. Squire would unite with them in urging the passage
 of  a law conferring upon this Board,  in addition  to its present  au-
 thority,  the power to regulate  the business of slaughtering, and to
 prescribe the  manner in which it shall be conducted.  I regret to
 say that this proposition has not been accepted ;  but we are in  the
 season when any offence to the  community, real  or  fancied, is sus-
 pended  by the cold weather.   Nobody can be harmed by a little
 delay in the proceedings before you; and I understand, from  the
 opening argument of their  counsel, that the petitioners do not  ask
 for the immediate suppression  of  our business.

   I thought I perceived, during the presentation of the complainants'
 case, an attempt to convict  my clients of a violation of the Lord's
 day; but the' examination of Mr. Squire, who is a  thorough and
 practical Christian, put  an end to this suggestion. ■ The works  are
 never run on  Sunday, except in times of necessity (which the law
 upholds), as when the comfort  and convenience of the community
 demand,  occurring chiefly  during warm weather.   The  milkman
 must  follow his route on Sunday as well as on week-days.  So  the
 early Monday  market for fresh meat must be supplied.

   Comprehensive remedies, not limited to one spot or a local trouble,
 but governing  all related areas, must be applied.   Too much, here-
 tofore, of misleading has arisen from the accidental  circumstance
 that upon the  borders of Miller's  River was located a particular in-
 dustry.  It was not unnatural that the unskilled observation of  the
 neighborhood should  trace the difficulty to this source.  It belongs
 to this Board,— and,  pardon me for saying, to opportunities like  the
 present, — to draw attention to that overshadowing cause of attack,
 which every fresh investigation brings more clearly into the  light,
 as threatening  the health of Boston and its vicinity.

  Allow me further to suggest that the broad office of this Board —
 the  felt  need which  called it  into being — presents  wider reaches
than any isolated case can  furnish.   I very much  regret that what
was  known as  the " Codman Bill," reported from the  Committee on
                     2 
                               18
                                             •
Water Supply and Drainage last winter, failed to receive  the  sanc-
tion of the  Legislature.   It provided for the appointment of a com-
mission, to consider  and  report to the  Legislature a plan for  the
sewerage,  water supply, and grade of highways, in- Boston, and a
territory of ten miles beyond  the city.   The bill was cordially sup-
ported by Mr. Squire, who employed counsel in its  behalf.  As  the
law now stands, each town and city must find the outlets of its sewers
within  its own  territory.  The suburbs  of Boston have not become
very populous, but public attention has been arrested by the fact that
this limitation is not only absurd,  but dangerous to the neighboring
communities.  This  matter  has already attracted the attention and
censure of this Board.  The  towns of Woburn and Winchester drain
into a pond, the source of  the river which supplies Cbarlestown,
Chelsea, Somerville,  and East Boston, and will soon, probably, sup-
ply the city proper, with water.  The positive present need of Boston,
the limits  of which have already crossed Charles River, is an adequate ■
realization of the  growing needs of a great community, — situated
upon the sea, — for that system of sewers which, while meeting  the
conveniences and necessities of the shore, shall offer the least pos-
sible obstruction to  the ocean paths  that lead to the wharves and
make the  commercial importance of the city.

  It is not  difficult to anticipate the general direction, so  far as
sewerage is concerned, which an inquiry like that  contemplated by
Colonel Codman's  bill would demand.  For both shores  of Charles
River, meeting in their passage to the harbor Miller's River and  the
Mystic, there must  be relief.   A system of discharge, for the east
and west  shores alike, must  be devised.  It  must  intercept and
gather all which now finds its way into  the  rivers,  so  as to convey
it, and all of the sewage from  both shores, far into the strong tidal
currents,  so  that  the flood will bear, substantially,  nothing back.
Otherwise, and under present circumstances, it is only a question of
time when  the  city of Boston, and particularly its western  shore,
overlooking  the  Charles, shall become  positively uninhabitable.
Advance,  I pray you, guardians of the public health, the thought of
the community to what is within easy, and  not remote, contempla-
tion in these respects.   Continue the  investigation  and  thought
upon the  sewage problem, begun with such  ability  in the admirable
paper contributed  by Dr.  Derby and  Professor Nichols to your  Re-
port for this  year. 
19
   Do us the justice to  remember that the Squire establishment is
on trial, singly and alone, and  for its  own faults only.  An artful
design of our opponents, in bringing before you nine separate com-
plaints in a bunch, was, undoubtedly, to link the  best and the worst
together in the district  within which all were located.  At our ear-
liest opportunity we objected to this congregation, and  claimed  the
right to be tried separately, and to stand or  fall  on the individual
merits of our particular establishment.  We aim no blow at others,
although we may have  suffered by and from them ; but in  the early
summer Mr. Squire, defending  from unjust aspersions, instituted an
observation of what was going  on, in general, upon  the  territory
where his works are situated, — the results of which have been pre-
sented to you.   Let me say that this observation was undertaken
from no sentiment of ill-will toward any one, but to disarm a mis-
directed prejudice, and to enlighten a community as  to  the  true
sources of annoyance which exist independently of the basins of
Miller's River.  It is not for us to pass judgment, nor would we, in
any degree^prejudice  any man's defence;  but  we cannot suffer
longer on account  of the misdeeds  of others.  It is probable  that
among the nine complaints simultaneously filed before  you, the in-
nocent and the guilty have been  mingled together.

   The long and carefully pursued investigation of Professor Hors-
ford, with its conscientious  and clear declaration of results, aided by
the determinations of Mr. Merrick, and the studies and testimony of
Mr. Avery (to whom the inquiry is  much indebted), relieve  me (as
they will all be preserved in print for your use) from the labor of a
re-presentation of the conclusions reached by these eminently quali-
fied chemists.
   I  have preferred, in  shaping this  argument,  to  deal with  the
broad, general questions which surround the case and  must deter-
mine its results, rather  than to employ myself in pointing  out mere
discrepancies, follies, and  contradictions in the  testimony  of  the
petitioners' witnesses.   If  I were disposed to do  this, I should  not
spend a moment over the attempts of local witnesses to distinguish
one odor from another in the atmosphere of this variously afflicted  dis-
trict.  It is sheer nonsense for the scent of the unscientific to essay that.
I am, however, greatly tempted to recall to your attention the strong,
consistent, and convincing evidence which has been brought forward
by the respondents, — covering  every salient point in the coutro- 
20
versy,  by an overwhelming preponderance  of the proofs.   I must
banish the temptation,  however, since the proper limits  to be as-
signed to an argument  on this  occasion, forbid any attempt at an
elaborate review or discussion of the voluminous testimony.   I have
the strength, and you have the patience, only for results.

  Regarding the charge that unpleasant odors have, on various occa-
sions, emanated from our establishment, to the annoyance of a wide
community, it appears that in most, if not of all, of the special in-
stances of discomfort, the wind has defended us from the accusation.
Thus,- on the night of the 31st of July it came to our aid; and I
should suppose that, on a review of the whole body of testimony,
there could be no lingering hope on the part of our opponents of
maintaining aught against us in connection with that night of wide-
spread and unparalleled suffering.  Another  potent fact, pointing to
the source from which  proceeds  the gas that chiefly  troubles  the
inhabitants, is associated with the events of  the 31st of July.  The
wind was from the southeast.  The white-painted buildings opposite
the Squire establishment, on Gore Street, preserved untarnished sur-
faces where exposed to  influences from the northwest, — showing,
again,  that nothing proceeding  from that direction  inflicted itself
upon the neighborhood that night.

  The lead papers exhibited here, to show slight traces of sulphu-
retted hydrogen obtained within the establishment, are insignificant
guides to conclusions upon the question whether injurious gases are
generated by our works.   Deeper discolorations  may be obtained
within any kitchen, when the roasting, broiling, or even boiling of
meat is going on.

  A significant fact which challenges  attention, because it  demol-
ishes the theory of the  complainants, is that the bad odors  pay in-
termittent visits to the inhabitants.  Now, the processes carried on in
our establishment have no pause.  Day in and day out, night in and
night out, there is like and unceasing occupation and movement.
Why, then, do not the inhabitants get the odor every night or every
day ?  Our opponents tell you that the direction of the wind makes
no difference.  Witnesses  say that  they have perceived the odors
when approaching the  establishment from  the direction  in which
the wind was moving, and that the smell was stronger at a consider- 
21
 able  distance from  the works than under their very walls.  They
 also claim that  on occasions when there is no wind the odor is per-
 ceptible miles away from us, though not observable at  all, or not as
 strong, near  to the establishment, — which seems  an absurd state-
 ment.  (By the way, if  it be  true that the odors travel  long dis-
 tances, and are  not perceived near by, it would be better to have
 the rendering establishments located in close neighborhoods, rather
 than  on their outskirts.)   They further pretend that when no un-
 pleasant odor from  the rendering vessels can be detected  inside of
 the works, the outside atmosphere is  tainted from them.   Now, if
 these  things be  true,  the  like  cause should produce  the like
 result.   The machinery  of our business is  never idle.  That this
 establishment is not guilty of  discharging foul odors into the air is
 proved by. the fact that  they are not always  present in it.  What-
 ever impurities, not  wholly traceable to the foul marshes and basins,
 enter into  the atmosphere and are perceived at times, it is reasonable
 to believe are chargeable to the  grease-boiling places, whose ket-
 tles  are not constantly heated, and whose fires are lighted only at
 times when a sufficient quantity of material has accumulated to fill
 the kettles.  Here is disclosed a sensible and  trustworthy solution,
 from  coincident facts.   Our  processes are  constant; the odor is in-
 constant.  The grease-boiling is intermittent;  the odor  is  intermit-
 tent.   Add to these facts  the further circumstance, that the odor is
 perceived chiefly at  night, and the grease-boiling is mainly done in
 the night.   There is no " moving of  gases  against  the wind,"  or
 other nonsense, about this  explanation.   Instead of leaning for sup-
 port on shallow  improbabilities, it plants itself upon common-sense.

  No one  should be condemned for a momentary misfortune, — an
 accident.   Your inquiry  is concerned with ordinary procedures and
 effects.   Because during the evening of the 31st of July there was
 a slight escape of gas, all traces  of which disappeared in ten or fifteen
 minutes, and which was caused by the water in the condenser be-
 coming heated, it would be both ridiculous and unjust to condemn a
piece of machinery, then on its first trial, and which has since per-
formed its  office with unvarying success.   A similar accident might
occur at the Brighton abattoir; but should the abattoir, therefore,
be denounced as a failure  and  a nuisance ?  If a main sewer, built
in the made land of  the Back Bay, breaks  away because of unequal
settling of the soil,  or if houses in the neighborhood  are  troubled 
22
with bad air from the sewers by reason of imperfect traps, shall the
sewer system itself be condemned ?

  Allow me to suggest that our particular business has increased, in
this  vicinity, faster than the attention of scientific men  has  been
directed to methods for conducting it in a safe and unobjectionable
manner.   Mr. Squire is alert and submissive.   He is receptive; and
the record shows that he welcomes and adopts every sound sugges-
tion of improvement.  Unless it is proposed to sweep away wholly
this  business from  Massachusetts, let him stand, as an example to
all others, engaged in a business in the conduct of which there  must
be a compromise between individual profit and the public welfare.
  Everything cannot be accomplished in a moment, and it is only fair
and just to await the development of well-intended and vigorously
pursued efforts, which are built upon the  best attainable advice and
instruction.   I am happy to find this position indorsed by the  State
Board of Health, in their Report for 1872, from which I quote these
considerate and sensible  words : " Such  changes " [referring to the
concentration of the  slaughtering of  cattle and sheep  at the new
Abattoir in Brighton]  " cannot be  made in a moment.  They require
deliberation; a regard for the rights of property, and a careful-con-
sideration of many details of construction."

  The latest judgment of the Metropolitan Board of Public Works
in London — the healthiest city in the world — condemns the  abat-
toir, borrowed from France, and declares that the 1,687 slaughter-
houses of that city had better, for sanitary reasons, be conducted
separately.

  The mention of the abattoir at Brighton, reminds me that I should
allude  to  the difficulties that met us upon the suggestion made by
the State Board of Health at our  preliminary appearance to answer
the complainants' charges.   The slaughtering of swine being a busi-
ness not intended, like that of the slaughtering of cattle and sheep,
to supply merely a local demand  for fresh  meat, but having a vast
foreign and domestic market, its  magnitude, alone, renders it im-
practicable to concentrate the business  in a single  establishment.
Mr. Squire's works, of themselves, are  twice as large as the abattoir.
The  other  legitimate establishments (North's, the Boynton Packing
Company's, and  Lincoln and  Chamberlain's),  combined equal the 
23
Squire works ;  so that  our union would make an establishment, at
present, four times as large as the abattoir at Brighton.  Now, we
of this  particular establishment have learned that public suspicion
and condemnation  bear  an intimate relation to the size and magni-
tude of these establishments.  Because of their extent, Mr. Squire's
works have  borne the  brunt of the common battle of the business
for existence.  Because  his  establishment is larger than any other,
the  petitioners put it in the  front.   Hoping  to taint it by associ-
ation, they involve with it, in  filing petitions, the humblest grease-
boiler in the district.  Knowing well  that if they can obtain your
judgment against it, they can  easily sweep  the whole district, they
force us first to  trial.   Thus  to-day, as in  the previous history of
this trouble,  the  contest falls primarily upon us.  We welcome the
situation, —  with its just limitations.  Full well they know that our
establishment is  ruled  and  conducted by men best equipped to  try
the  question, — and here you  have it in its length and breadth, —
whether this business, adopting into its processes, regardless of cost,
the  best and freshest achievements of  scientific direction, shall  live
anywhere in Massachusetts ?
   Let science do its best, there will always be complaints and com-
plainants.  It would be very easy to bring before this Board twice
as many persons  from Old Cambridge  as the petitioners in this case
have produced from East  Cambridge, to testify to  you that the
Brighton abattoir — the child  of your creation and  care — brings
intolerable odors and offence  to their dwellings.  The local news-
papers of Cambridge were filled last summer with this accusation.
The writers were positive as to the direction of the wind;  and some
of them claimed  to have followed  the  odors to their source, — the
abattoir.  It is probable that  these odors did not proceed from the
abattoir  at all, but came from the small  slaughter-houses  in  its
neighborhood.  Size frightens the public.   Thus to the Squire estab-
lishment, because of its magnitude, are falsely attributed the odors
arising from  the uncleanly grease-boiling places located around it.
   It is my  duty,  in this connection, to attract your attention to
another embarrassment, forbidding the removal of  our  business,
which interests  the purchasing community quite as much as our-
selves.  If, abandoning  our  present well-chosen location, we were
to retire to a greater distance from the point of local distribution, we
should not only sink a half-million dollars invested in our buildings,
but the consumers of our products must be charged with an increase 
24
in the price of  meat sufficient  to  make  good to us the additional
cost of transportation, which would amount to $ 25,000 a year for
each mile of the distance of our retirement from the metropolis.
   Where, I pray you, shall this business be conducted, if it is to be
kept for the commercial  benefit of Boston,  and in the interest of
cheap meats in the neighborhood ?   Such an  establishment  cannot
be  located,  afresh,  in  any  place containing four, thousand  inhab-
itants  without  leave  of  the  local authorities.   It cannot exist
in any such new locality without  liability to encounter a petition
to this Board for its suppression, like that to which we now respond.
It is, therefore, a simple question of abolishment from the Common-
wealth.
   Well, gentlemen, look at the spot and  its surroundings where we
now are located.  Trace its  history.  Yqu find it has been devoted
to a similar business for a period stretching beyond the  recollection
of most  men now living; you see that  the  lines of railroad com-
munication  necessary for its continuance, both for the reception 'of
the live animals from the West, and the transmission of the product,
alike for foreign shipment and domestic distribution, conveniently
centre  there.  I need hardly allude to the ancient  slaughter-house,
soap-boiling, and tallow-chandler's shop of the Winchesters.  I sup-
pose that the fact of their having taken possession of this particular
spot led the glass manufacture  to resort there.  One thing is abso-
lutely certain, that for three generations  trades, recognized as offen-
sive in a measure, have planted themselves upon  this spot.   Low
and marsh  ground for the most  part, it was not inconsiderately
chosen.  Intelligent citizens have deserted it  as a place of residence,
year by  year.   No ties of  homestead can resist business develop-
ments  and aggression, as  the history  of Boston changes  shows.
Unless Mr. Muuroe's idea  is  to prevail, that no  slaughter-house,
however well furnished and conducted, is to exist, unless it  is sur-
rounded by a square mile of uninhabited land, it is difficult to con-
ceive of a  better present and  prospective situation for the  Squire
establishment than that which  it now occupies.   If we were driven
to  a barren waste, a close  neighborhood would rapidly  spring up
around us.  The workmen  must live near'their work.  Then the
physician and apothecary,  the grocer,  butcher, baker, and tailor,
would  come.  The school and the teacher, the church and  the  cler-
gyman, and all the belongings of  social life, would  follow.   We
should make  a very respectable  village  at  the .start.   There are 
25
fourteen hundred men employed  in  these establishments,  repre-
senting a population of, say, seven thousand persons.   Observe the
proportion between this population, located where  these establish-
ments now are, and  the total number of  inhabitants in East Cam-
bridge, — namely, nine thousand.   We did not come to this popu-
lation ; it has come to us.   Isolation for this business from populous
neighborhoods is impracticable.
   Now I have to submit to you that it has already become a sub-
stantial fact, that the belt of  territory in Cambridgeport and East
Cambridge, eastward of a line drawn three hundred or five  hundred
feet west of the Grand Junction Branch of the Boston and Albany
Railroad, and between Charles and Miller's Rivers, must be sur-
rendered to factories and  business.  Lines of intercommunication
settle these questions.  Lying  between land and water transporta-
tion, this territory has been,  and must  continue to be, seized upon
by business.   Nature and art have combined to make  it a site  for
business.  The  assessors'  books show  that the valuation of East
Cambridge has  nearly doubled within  the last five years, having
risen to $9,656,480, —of which about $4,500,000 is represented by
manufactures  and other branches of business, — while  that part of
Cambridgeport, lying within the belt described, is almost wholly de-
voted to similar occupation.  Mark, also, the wonderful increase in
population and  valuation  of Somerville.    Its population in  ten
years, from 1860 to 1870, was doubled, while its valuation has risen
from $12,590,900, in  1870,  to $29,643,100, in 1873, —a gain in
three years of over one hundred per centum.

   Slaughter-houses exist in all large cities — in London; Paris, and
New York — in densely populated neighborhoods.  What, that is
peculiar to  Boston, should drive  these industries hence ?  Why,
especially, strike down the one establishment  which I represent,
located in  this  suitable suburban place, and confessedly the rival
of any other in the world ?

   Your authority is a broad  one.  If the  " health, comfort,  and con-
venience" of  the inhabitants  require, you  may  exterminate  the
business in which we are engaged.  But a power as ample existed
in the local boards of health before  your establishment.  Do  I read
the law incorrectly, in inferring that the Legislature in creating this
Board, with its greater and  more  comprehensive powers, contem- 
26
plated a broader view and judgment upon the subject ?  If a local
board, under the law, makes investigation, it can have in view only
the " health, comfort, and convenience"  of the limited community
for which it acts, and whose interests  only are its concern.   It can-
not legislate beyond town lines ; but the Slate Board of Health sur-
veys all Massachusetts.   Its ample commission brings not only the
health of a limited community, but the health,  comfort, and con-
venience of the whole people, into its  vision.  Yes, and beyond this,
it summons  into view all that relates to the well-being and  pros-
perity of the whole people, and the broad and general interest of all.
It is  in  the  light and elevation  of this aspect of your duties that
Boston — so largely contributing  to produce  the  distinction of the
State — calls upon you, in this investigation, not  to be deaf to the
appeal of commerce.

   The " comfort and convenience " of all the inhabitants of  Massa-
chusetts  do not require  the total suppression and abolition of this
business, — certainly not  in an establishment conducted as ours is.
If it makes a limited neighborhood a  less agreeable place of resi-
dence, let those who suffer betake themselves away from it.  This
is no great hardship.  Business is inexorable.  It is pleasant to live
upon  an ancestral  estate; but the " North  End" is no longer the
court end of Boston, as it was in the days of our grandfathers.  The
descended  home-attachments  of  East Cambridge were long since
doomed.   Trade will have the water-front.   Mr. Soule was rip-lit in
                                                         O
removing his family outside of the line of encroachment.  Hundreds
of sagacious  citizens had  preceded him. The Rev. Mr. McDaniel
was right when he said, if the  advance of business made his home
disagreeable, he must retire his home from its  lines.  But some peo-
ple must remain there.   They are fast being reduced to that class
whose employments require them to sacrifice to their situation very
many desired comforts.  There are many useful and necessary call-
ings, pursued for the benefit of the whole community, that diminish
the pleasures of life to those who  keep them in  motion.  But  from
this locality there comes not to you, from this class, a single voice
against us.  Nevertheless, you are to consider them as within  your
care.
   There remains, therefore, this question : Does the "public health "
demand the suppression  of the Squire establishment ?  Our oppo-
nents have exhausted  every available resource upon this  inquiry. 
27
 The  end of it all is, that they have failed to show, in the feeblest
 woman or child in East Cambridge, a case of  suffering which pro-
 duced anything more than nausea (vomiting in rare instances), or a
 slight irritation of the throat.  In no single  case was a physician's
 attendance ever summoned.  They made a public appeal by resolu-
 tion, printed  and circulated, for  testimony; and  this  is  the result.
 In practical contradiction of the notion that the business pursued in
 our establishment is detrimental to health, the condition of Mr.
 Squire's men  and their families is a living, present, overwhelming
 witness.  I remember that  at the  Cambridge hearing,  last  year,
 these same complainants called several local physicians, in the hope
 of  showing that the odors from the  Squire establishment  produced
 fevers in the  neighborhood.   The absence of these gentlemen and
 of  this accusation, at the present trial, is  very significant.   It is
 barely possible that it may  be traceable, in a degree, to the circum-
 stance that before that former hearing closed some attention, in  be-
 half of Mr. Squire, was drawn to the fact that fever poisons are ino-
 dorous.  The  origin of fever is still held, I  believe,  by the highest
 medical authorities, to be shrouded in mystery.  Various  theories
 upon this subject  have had their day, and perished.
   If credit is  to be given to the Registration Reports of Massachu-
 setts, the business of slaughtering animals does not tend to increase
 the death-rate in the communities where it is located.  The butchers
 — like the cooks in our kitchens, living in the midst of odors similar
 to  those  prevailing,  in a less  degree,  from lard-rendering  in  the
 Squire works — are  noted  for health  and  longevity.  From  the
 Eleventh Registration Report is compiled the following table, which
 presents the returns of four years, 1849 - 1852, inclusive : —
                  Deaths — Four Years — 1849 - 1852.
   Towns.                           Inhabitants.           Average age of death.
 Brighton......2,356               23.02 years.
 Brookline.......2,516              21.95  "
 Cambridge......15,215              21.91  "
 Ch.arlestown.....17,216              21.14  "
 Lowell .......33,383              19.72  "
 Natick......2.744               21.12  «
 Boston ....... 136,181               20.36  "
 Chelsea   .    .    .    .   ' .    .    6,701               17.87  "
  This table represents a period anterior to the introduction of the
swine-slaughtering and rendering business,  at present conducted
upon the shores of Miller's River.  From it we  find that Cambridge, 
28
 without slaughter-houses and  with drainage, was less healthy than
 Brighton, with slaughter-houses  and no drainage.   It  also  appears
 that in the town of Brookline, exempt from  slaughter-houses, the
 average duration of life was less than that in the contiguous town of
 Brighton.  A further noticeable fact is, that in the town of Chelsea,
 also without slaughter-houses, but  largely composed of marsh-land,
 the average age at death was 17.87 years, while in  Brighton it was
 23.02.
   Further reference to the same report may be useful.   It affords
 these facts: —
                                 Population.    Deaths.      Death-rate.
  •  Cambridge.....15,215      1,541      1 in 39£
    Brookline.....2,516        185      1 in 54T%
    Brighton.....2,356        143      1 in 66

   It thus appears that during these years Cambridge had an annual
 death-rate of  more than one  in  forty, while Brighton had a death-
 rate of less than one in sixty-six.   Of the land within the limits  of
 East Cambridge, from 60 to 75 per cent is marsh.
  The  eminent Parent-Duchatelet,  in a work, on Public  Hygiene,
 published in Paris in 1836, gives the results of personal observation,
 together with  facts collected from public and  other  sources.  From
 this work  it appears that the men and  women  employed in the
 knackers'  yards at  Montfaucon in skinning  and cutting up dead
 horses, are healthy and long-lived, even where the animals  have died
 of diseases that would have poisoned  persons employed in the care
 of them while alive.   The  tanners who dress the skins of the horses
 are not affected  by the diseases  of which  they died.   During the
 cholera, in Petite-Villette, bordering on Montfaucon, the  mortality
was one in sixty-nine; while  in Grand-Villette,  which  is  distant
from it, one in sixty died of the disease. Not one man in the knack-
ers' yards  died, and not one was sick.
  It is believed that decaying vegetable, not  animal, matter occa-
 sions disease.

  I submit that a just  and reasonable interpretation of the statute
applicable to  the present inquiry does not call for  the suppression
of the  Squire  establishment, unless its continuance  is proved to be
injurious to the health of the inhabitants.   If only  offensive to the
sense of smell, it is not to be crushed.  It stands upon the same
basis with many other  things  not  altogether agreeable, but whose 
29
 existence, instead of being against the " comfort  and convenience"
 of the community, is  essential to its sustenance.  The slaughter-
 house is necessary, — for the people must  have food.   Gas-works
 are offensive, — but the people must have light.  The gathering and
 carting of garbage and swill in the  streets of Boston is an offence
 to all passers-by, infinitely greater than the transporting of any part
 of the  refuse of  slaughter-houses  can occasion (indeed, the lat-
 ter can give no offence at all when conducted in air-tight wagons),—
 but the  refuse from dwellings and shops must be removed from the
 city.    Horse-car stables  are  not agreeable, — yet they must be
 located  among the people who  make use of this mode  of travel.
 Even  school-houses are so objectionable that, in order to secure land
 in eligible locations for them, it has been  found necessary to confer
 upon  the local authorities the power of eminent domain.

   The history of  Miller's River is  the  history of the  shores of
 Boston  and its  neighborhood.   That river, like  the  Charles, was
 formerly pure.   The discharges  from the sewers, and the slaugh-
 ter-house  contributions in unenlightened days, aided by artificial
 changes of the natural shores and the increase of population, have
 turned Miller's River into a series of foul, precipitating catch-basins.
 Not very much attention was attracted to the change  from whole-
 someness to impurity until the summer of 1871, when an expedient
 was tried by the  city government of  Cambridge to relieve the sit-
 uation.  This effort, unhappily, only served to render matters worse
 than they had been before.   It was the construction of a dam, four
 or five feet in height, at the Bridge Street crossing.   Now water-
 filling and water-flooding are two very different things.   Of course
 the effect of  the filling, created by the  dam, was to increase the
 settling  character of all the basins above Bridge Street.   The trial
 of this experiment, during three summer weeks, awakened the op-
 position  of Somerville, and induced  the  removal of the dam by
 Cambridge.  It never,  however,  was  thoroughly removed, and the
 influence of the experiment yet lingers.   It  left permanent  effects,
 in a largely increased deposit upon the bed of the  basin.  Of course,
 this must have been the result, for the influence of the ebb tide in
 bearing oceanward  the more solid and  heavier contributions  to the
 water, to be retired with the last half of  the  ebb, was wholly lost.
 Hitherto, but slight  attention  to the gathering impurities  in the
river-beds had been excited.  But presently, and as the immediate
rtAriOi'JAL L!3^Y  OF  MEDtUtf
      WASHINGTON, D. C, 
30
fruit of this mistake, public apprehension was awakened, and it has
been since engaged in an effort to trace and detect the source of the
atmospheric affliction from which the community suffers.
  As long as the question of  the treatment  to  be applied for the
cure of the evil in the river-beds was a matter of controversy, there
was  much  excitement  in the  community and denunciation of all
suspected causes of the grievance.   But men, not  inflamed by past
relations to the contest, — such as  former  mayors  of Cambridge;
the present mayors of both Cambridge and Somerville; nearly every
member of the present Board of Aldermen of Cambridge; represent-
atives in both Houses of-the Legislature;  the late city solicitor, Mr.
Parker, together with other prominent citizens, — have  the good
sense to bow to the advice of the Joint Commission, and the equity
to wait for its results.  There is no present commotion in Cambridge
and Somerville over the vexed " Miller's River nuisance."   There is
a very  hopeful  attention directed toward the progress  and results
of the  methods suggested by this Boar-d, and  enforced by the Legis-
lature,  for the extermination of the  nuisance.   Public  expectation
rests confidently in the belief that the filling of  the basins, and the
providing of the grand sewer, will cure past  and lingering evils  in
the district.   So much for a locality.

  Continuing  the contemplation of purely  sanitary observations,
you  find us employed, with constant and liberal efforts, to relieve
the reasonable objections of the community;  having  every wish for,
and interest in, its prosperity and comfort.   But attention directed
toward our  particular establishment — quieted "by the fact that if
any similar business can  exist in any • available  situation  in Massa-
chusetts, we ought not to be, at  present, disturbed — is led forward
to the  ever-pressing inquiry,  how  the  reconciliation, through the
efforts  of scientific men, of these commercial interests and the  pub-
lic comfort can be solved and accomplished.

  The   contemplation of the removal  from Boston  to' the West of
the hog-slaughtering business  leads us to  consider what such a step
would  cost this community.  The first effect which  summons itself
to attention, is  the immediate promise  of a  hard winter, with low
wages, and a curtailed employment of the laboring class.   To them,
as to all consumers, it would  mean  and be an increase, in our local
markets, of at  least four cents  a pound in the price of pork,__the 
31
staple meat consumed by them.  It would advance the price of beef
and  mutton, also, in  the  same ratio, in  this neighborhood.  Pork,
every practical dealer in provisions knows, regulates the price of aU
animal food.  The farmer  and stock-raiser in Maine  and Vermont,
or in the West, will tell you this.  They, outside of your jurisdic-
tion, watch, like the near neighborhood, what is in progress here.
   I presume that the Board are in agreement with Dr. John Simon,
— the first sanitarian in  England, — who, in his  testimony before
the Parliamentary Commission, lately said :  " It is of great impor-
tance for the happiness and for the health  of  a  community, that
fresh meat should be easily obtained, and as cheap as  possible."

   It may be said that these are exceptional times; but  the leap is
easy to permanent commercial effects upon Boston.  Time was when
Boston, under the enterprise and  guidance of her early merchants,
held  up her head in  bold and  lofty contest for the  commercial
supremacy of the American shore of the Atlantic.  To  remind you
of the disastrous  results  to the  commercial prosperity of  Boston,
which may flow from ill-advised measures, let me call  to your atten-
tion the tax upon sales by auction, which, on  its adoption about
thirty years  ago, drove away to New York our trade with China,
which had  been  the pride and support of the commerce of  Boston.
Then followed a period  of decline and despondency, and  New York
advanced to what seemed  to be a settled  and permanent obscuration
of Boston.  We lost the English steamers.   Imports  took the lead
of exports;   All  was in  decline.   Many were they who predicted
that the acme of  Boston  prosperity had been reached  and passed.
But there came a fresh  impulse from an unanticipated quarter.  Mr.
Squire started  his business upon the banks of  Miller's  River, and
others followed him.  Finally the business attracted  the attention
of the Cunard line.  Boston smarted under the withdrawal of steam
communication with Europe.   Investigation was  had.   The fresh
impulse given by this business to the port of Boston won the steam-
ships back. * They stcty or go, according  as it continues or perishes,
under your order.

   I venture to say that no proposition to extinguish  any one busi-
ness house, or any collection of business establishments belonging to
the same class, ever awakened, in  this community, such  serious at-
tention or conspicuous remonstrance as this hearing has drawn forth. 
32
Facilities for commercial intercourse determine the results of com-
mercial rivalry.   There are, perhaps, fifty or one hundred persons in
East Cambridge (not a soul comes here from Somerville) who, moved
by one motive or another, ask you to destroy our business and drive
us from the Commonwealth.   They fail to  attract any support from
the local authorities.  Against their effort the Boston Board of Trade
enters its solemn protest.   Unwilling to say, on  mere custom-house
presentation, that the assailed  business should be preserved,  the
merchants of Boston appoint  a  committee, conspicuous for intelli-
gence and character, and headed by that distinguished and  experi-
enced gentleman, the Hon. Alexander H. Rice, — long in  the front,
as mayor of the city and its member in Congress, — as the represent-
atives of Boston, to visit our establishment, and to test with a prac-
tical, common-sense, business judgment the validity of the objections
raised against it.  On  a thorough  examination, they  unanimously
agreed that these were unfounded.  They made their report.  It re-
ceived the unanimous indorsement of the body that sent them forth
on the service.   They appeal to you not to strike down this business
and drive away foreign connections with the city of Boston.
  Beside the protest of the Cunard Steamship  Company, in  behalf
of the  ocean  service  of Boston, — one in  three of whose ships is
loaded by the single establishment  that I  represent, — the Boston
and Albany  Railroad Company, to whom we pay  $ 700,000  in
freights  annually, presents its interest to your attention.  And this
involves the State, to which it is a debtor.   Every other road lead-
ing from Boston, including the  coming Tunnel line, in which  the
State is  concerned to the extent of $ 12,000,000, is largely interested
in the question whether this business shall continue or perish.
  The product of my clients' establishment is distributed in every
direction.  You will remember that its  annual value is $ 8,000,000,
of which five millions find a market at home.   By its  life, every
spring  of  Boston commerce is touched and invigorated.  Why ?
Forty-five per cent of the exports of Boston are furnished by this busi-
ness.  In the light of these facts, no one holding any official relation
to this hearing can be surprised at the  unparalleled rally of o-eneral
business interests in  support  of a cause denominated private, but
really the cause of the  community.

  Permit me to say that the community  watches with  solicitude
the progress  of this investigation.   Practical, common-sense judcr- 
33
ment is  being  applied to its  developments.   What has been pre-
sented within this room has had a much wider hearing without and
beyond it.  In. the marts of business every step is watched.  A wide
and interested audience of the whole public is addressed.
  The existence of every power and the question of its continuance
are dependent upon popular welcome and support.   My clients, far
from being fearful or timid under  intelligent and practical investi-
gation, desire its observation.  It is inconceivable to them that an
establishment,  which the necessities  of  the community  demand
should exist  in some convenient  and appropriate location, can be
condemned where it now is situated.  Public  opinion has testified,
by the action of local tribunals;  and we have presented to you an
overwhelming exposition of resident feeling, judgment, and advice.

   It occurs to any one indifferent to the controversy, — and therefore,
of course, to the gentlemen of this  Board, — that the local -Boards of
Health of Cambridge and Somerville, possessing ample powers, may
be properly trusted ; and, as the most intimate representatives of the
people, should  have confided to them the disposition and settlement
of the controversy, presented by individuals, merely, to  your  atten-
tion.   I  ground myself upon a fair and equitable proposition in this
suggestion.
   I  speak  in behalf of a very  great interest.  If  a survey  of the
whole Commonwealth  be had, it can attract  to your  attention no
office the equal in importance of that which now assembles you.
You hold in your hands a very grave duty, and there is nothing but
good  sense and courage on the part of  those who ask you, under all
the attendant circumstances, to leave the solution of the controversy
to the local authorities, chosen to office by, and representing, the home
opinion and  judgment.  Trust these  local  authorities.   They are
vigilant,  and upon the  ground.   It seems strange that an  appeal
should be made from their best informed judgment,  with the dream,
even, that it would be reversed  elsewhere.   It seems  stranger yet
that that appeal should  be made to one branch of the Commission
to whom the  Legislature delegated the  duty of discovering  and rec-
ommending the proper remedies to be applied for the relief of this
general district, and whose recommendations, in every respect, have
entered  into absolute  requirements of law,  by the  unaided, and
opposed,  exertions of my clients.   Nay, more;  I look upon it as
among the strangest of my personal  and professional experiences,
                   3 
34
that I should be summoned to utter  a word of defence, here and
now,  in their behalf;  when, by  common acknowledgment, it  is
known and proved that the'remedies which this Board itself advised
are in progress of accomplishment, and that in the van of their car-
rying out stand the accused.  I pray you, is anybody in earnest and
honest in this matter ?   Search all Somerville and  Cambridge to-
day, and you will not find the hand, official or private, which has
applied, itself with such good  faith and energy to the accomplish-
ment  of your advice and direction.
  Do we ask too  much of your  equity and judgment, when we
stand here to-day with one plain, righteous request, — which is, that
you will permit us, as  a party to a controversy  which you have
helped to solve, to  do the work already assigned  to us, willing to
abide by its results, and conscious  that  they involve the settlement
of  the question of the continuance of our business ?   Why this
premature renewal  of opposition ?  Cannot our opponents wait to
see what comes from the developments  of your advice, already given
in the premises ?   Rely upon it, the present application finds its
spring in the animosity of individuals, and  is not  sustained by ihe
good judgment and  sense of justice of the community at large.  At
least,  let us try one, and the first, of your prescribed remedies  before
we  are sacrificed to  those who have opposed us from the start. Re-
member that the local authorities are quiet, friendly, and expectant
of good results from measures now in progress.   One remedy at a
time ! The problem is a complicated one. Let it not become further
involved and obscured by a confusion of official action.  I think we
are entitled, in view of liberal expenditures already made and to be
faithfully continued by us, to claim that the filling and the  sewer
shall have a fair trial.  If they fail to obliterate the nuisance, then,
but not until then, in common fairness, ought my  clients to be as-
sailed, or molested, or put to the trouble and expense of an  inves-
tigation like the present. 
 
NATIONAL L1BRARV OF MEDICIN
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